Autumn poem

Autumn upon us it's time
To set a match to kinderling
Rest by the hot press of silk light
Watch sparks race up the flue
With youthful dreams they too
Might be stars.

It washes the city flat and sick
November's clouded light
Paints every shade with muddied brush
I wish I'd sown all the feathers to my wings
Wish I had stitched in August
In earnest.

Radiators are not the hearth
Fan heaters not the fire
Guide my taper to the driest tinder
And watch it catch in flickers
A curved lick from a knot that starts to jet
I will let it smoke
Let it weave wisps to plumes
And then blow
Call forth a genie,
Wild feet snapping twigs in dance
Grant me warmth, comfort and light to see by
Cocooned from autumn in it's grey
In all it's forms of colourful decay.

Getting burned never put me off
Holidays with blackened fingers
Sores from embers to remind me of my folly
I loved playing with fire when young

A hazy memory of me
In my sister's ill-fitting dungarees
Laying a fire as a sphere of straw with wood in
Like an oven
I loved playing with fire when young.

This impulse to gather wood and pile it
An odd source of happiness, primordial reward
Clockwork foresight, dyed into my Id
I love to gather wood
And can think of but one purpose
To set fires in autumn and wish.

Gulls

There's always a storm down the Thames these days
Constant as traffic, a carousel of gull calls
Over the tiles, the roofs, rusted swinging hinges
Even in spring blue sky, days since rainfall
There must always be a storm in the Thames.

They eat the pigeons, the gulls do
With their ired eye and their wronged screech
I've seen them, like you may have too
Pigeons left the field for Parrakeets.

My mother, looking at the clouds would mutter
When thigh high young her hand I reached for
There's storm at Chatham, over Thanet
They fly down to London to find harbor
And Pigeons are softer than Ganets.

There must be a storm out to sea
Pigeons have moved on from grass seed
And the Gulls have moved on from fish
Pecking boxes of K.F.C
Avians scavenging trash
It is, as Darwinian does
These days we breed Vultures from Doves.

I heard of civil war where Starlings breed
Now they travel with but a clutch of friends
Sparrows survive, some return to the trees
Someone won five thousand pounds in the end.

There's a storm in the Thames, gulls are in flight
The wooden lense of tradition has said
Of people who look on red sky at night
Only shepherds of the Atlantic
Go soundly to bed, and Grandma will tell
That is was all fields, before Haber-Bosch
These days there's always a storm in the Wash.

There's always a storm down the Thames
And other legends
The widow in Richmond, who in loving grief
Released a pair of green Parrakeets
And park by park they fought for twenty years
Till they shocked us one scarfed schooled winter
Green against grey and the naked trees of the heath
A flock of sqwaking green Parrakeets.

Doves become Vultures, Parrots replace Doves
Darwin says it what it takes to find love
Grandma says the Lord works in mysterious ways
And there's always a storm in the Thames these days.

Something I said to bloke on stage

Don't step to me with that
Gotta be black to rap crap
That abject chat is a trap
That forefathers fought to free from
But you jumping straight back.

Erecting same walls of Melanin
Like the spirit of slave masters
Still leaves deep within

You divide and categorise
By the colour of man's skin
Brother that ain't brain cells
That's brain prison.

Untame Ode to Ali Cole

Moonbeam loom your weft and woof

Does leave me a breathless beetroot youth

The softest quilt, your sticky silk

Is all cocooning of my heart that melts.

In truth I haven't felt this way

Since I dived velvet chocolate caramel

And swam intoxicated days

Till my teeth sank into nougat quays

And mermaids, raised me on Patchouli breeze

With magic made me divine wind.

Oh moonbeam loom, let me begin again.

At Ariadne's knee she learned

To weave the equinox's light

Into silver sheets and pearls

That hold souls warm and tight.

Oh moonbeam loom

Let me dye just one thread

Or know

I'd rather die instead.

I gaze though gauzes in my bed

No light to see by in your stead

But stumble blind in garden sheds

By scent alone to roses led

With searching fingers grasp their heads

And push a dozen to my nose

But their touch is not of your ilk

As brick to Sapphire is

As water is to milk.

A rose cannot bind me like your silk.

Ode to Ali Cole

There is a story to be told
About the glory of Ali Cole
But not a story I can tell
So wide the sea, so deep the well.

For I can gaze into the heavens
But cannot count the stars
They name me but a heathen
In the hunt of Diana.

Though my eye is full of moon
But one side I see
All its markings and its runes
Remain a mystery.

I can but stand as priests have done
Marvel at the moon and sun
As they set my night and day
In ways that I can't fathom.

I can but stand as priests and pray
In humble wonder of all she be
A glory far beyond assay
Pray, enlightenment she'll bestow on me.

Note to a bird on a train

Thank you
You gave me a pen
To write
A rare gem
From a ship in the night.

Shoulders of giants

Where cords of civilisation are moored

The brittle guy ropes of our tree house world

I see men of law and plump senators

Laying blocks and digging foundation holes

New barriers rising high while I watch

Above where the arm stops, at the seam stitch.

There the claims of Captains of industry

Lead lines of blind leaders like Pavlov's bell

“All the silver I land belongs to me”

They cry so proud from high on the lapel.

Laying barbed wire which they freshly forge

Electrifying the tromba, notch and gorge

Dragging paper up the back by the cart

Reams in blocks yards thick on seams daily grow

Miles upon miles of statutes and torts

To form walls, tall and strong like Jerrico

At the entrances they make gates like Gates

Would charge fees to all who climb the breastplate.

It's about time we weren't all so compliant

They'll privatise the shoulders of giants.

Do Mssrs Musk, Zuckerberg, Venter, Brin

Feel that they could have achieved anything

Had they not in diligence caught coat tales

The thick braid between gold buttons scaled.

Licence royalties owed to Edison

Newton, Bacon, Faraday and whoever

Was the Babylonian that pressed on

Wet clay with stones way back in Nineveh.

Illiterate, I don't think they'd have one percent of the clients

They're all reliant

On the shoulders of giants.

This deft suspension above the deep shit

This tree house society of all us

Exists high in the sky, every bit

Borne on shoulders of countless Colossus.

Without the lookout post of libraries

We'll fall from the Eden of these high trees.

Make mine a Molotov, get defiant

They want privatise shoulders of giants.

Excercise

I spent some time in thought about it all
If
I was a climber, unvertiginous
Oh if
I loved to wander waterfalls and cliffs
If only
I tended to flowers idigneous
If only I
Couldn't live in the City's artifice
If only ideas
Freed I from these strictures and earthly bonds
If only ideas purr
Like a calm cat, watchful, ready, at peace
If only ideas purchase
Houses full bread, pillows, songs and friends
If ony ideas purchase say
Dreams of peace, light, empires and monuments
If only ideas' purchase save us
From the vagaries of love and our end
Only if ideas' purchase saves us now
Will I keep the habour afore of the prow.

Some piece of confusion

Wish she'd had enough to love
In her heart
That she weren't so hurt
You know.
Didn't start from gentle touch
So far apart, yet
I glimpse light from pillboxes
From just a brush
I think we'd fit like stencils
And alter charts,
My fire never quieted
For us.

So late in summer - sonnet

Speak less of desire so late in summer

When heat swaddles tarmac, rising from roots

Flowers in finery seduce bees dumb

And sun kisses sugar into green fruits.

The hay's to be brought in, the grass is long

The seas are warm, tall corn has ripened ear

December born charm, think my heart unwrong

So late, speak less of desire my dear.

All life's adventure, so late in summer

So late waking, bees already in love

Strawberries from spring beds have set runners

Still dusk takes an age to draw close above

This season of slow days when geese look South
She was born, a Passion flower in her mouth.

Closed vowel

Why did love not open

We made move and prove

And even lose and open vowel

But love stayed closed

And now to find a rhyme

I am so oft defeated

Love, love, love

It must have stayed repeated.

So late in summer

Speak less of desire so late in summer

When heat swaddles tarmac, rising from roots

Flowers in their finery seduce bees dumb

And sun kisses sugar into green fruits.

The hay's to be brought in, the grass is long

The seas are warm, the corn has ripened ear

The collared doves coo soft in song

May born charm, think my heart unwrong

Talk less of desire my dear.

All life is adventure

So late in summer

So late waking, with bees already in love

When dusk takes an age to draw covers close

Geese look south

She was born of this season

Passionflower in her mouth.

Sick note for Tommy Bee's birthday

Oh marbled fleshed Adonis
Unadmonishable
So unearthly is your promise
It is immodest that I pretend
To frame such mind-bending glory
With a pen.

So stout of jaw and firm of hip
That artists track your every step
A truth I see that at your birth
The very fabric of aesthetics ripped
And all was lit across the earth
As glorious God let us see in you
Heroic new dimensions
Of beauty timeless true.

I have heard the name Tommy Bee
Sung in arias overseas
And whispered in hushed reverent tones
Gates, Obama seek to phone
Diaz, Delevigne writhe and sweat
Westwood (V) casts weekly thrones.

And scientists they wish to test
That muscled member world renowned as blessed
That thick undulating silken dick
That zestful lovers besotted lick
With heaving chest and heart so quick
They quest to taste the irreplacable
Lollipop of Hackney Wick.

Sonic Boom

Gurning sun-burnt urchins lurch church to church uncertain

In curious discovery of all covered by the curtains.

Lethargic surges urge in waves merging pungent nights with days

In rolling surf of mirth and smurfs, giraffes, and of course, unicorns

Dressed in heavy gauge

Macrophages for anxiety, scour thoroughfares of pagan piety

Alleyways of high society.

And all the world's a stage

To see bees

Make a merry path so free

Dancing underneath the trees

Moments that can only please

And all the world's a stage.

Sparkle this lithium crisp reaction i saw shooting stars

Look, a smile and another, and another in a milky way

Which way, oh what wily bewitchment hexes this

Enchanted wood, I hear leaves play tambourines

And lights in orange, white and green

Shadows dance and hug me warm like wilderness

Perambulating ambient distances, riotous bliss, listless of all, dam hill

Missed this, legs kill, white coats, pill for that,

Missed this, in glistening visions, missions in fission

Listening to waves breaking in space in fat collisions

Wishing

For a clean place to shit-in.

Cover me on the grass like ashes, drift like pollen in the sun

Running syrup thick liquid marionette to sounds and sets

Settled and encamped in rainbow ranks, what walls

What walls are there that would resist this army's siege.

Drink a case this on my feet

Tarantella daft, laced with tastes of scenes, bass and acts

For others

I can't speak

The most useful paste of lean baked half sedated waste

I been in a year and a week

For real

Something saved my grace in those fields.

Battle bars

Your deadweight statements are basic, abate them
I got half a dozen replacements
You'll take vacations in basements
Concrete casements no trace, no body, no statements
Wasting your grace chasing migratory geese
Geaser I'm decorating temporary space with these beats
We done verbal feats
In places where iron gates get effaced by the beast
You heard all the  chiefs, daft
I'm sicker than cats fed on weeks of fur-balls and grass.
You claim you badder by half
Bet I'm madder, brung better rungs the ladder
Had enough of rough mathematics and adders
Don't be sad that your pad is full of fakes and charades
Bars claiming your hard
You only punt ounces, all you bounce is a card
Gwaan jog your hard arse right back to your yard
Act like you heard
My style is known lardarse round here and abroad
Don't be sad that you're around to drown in my wake
My shit is greater, no debate, settled and clear
Your ears been waiting to hear shit like this
Since like Shakespeare.

Scum also rises

They say that cream rises to the top
A quote true of pure milk
But that's about where it stops.

For when I boil the pot
Cream in or not
It's scum that I see rise to the top.

So don't be suprised
If the film is not
As the quotation advises
There is the odd clot
And scum also rises.

Me friend he say

My friend, he enquire 
I say “Fire. Wired. Less tired” 
We converse 
And in some flippancy 
I drop discursive verse 
Upon family 
Him a see me 
Him a say 
“Do you have a problem with intimacy” 

Me a say 
“If I have learnt one thing today 
It's easier when they run away 
It might not please, might bring dismay 
What's easier when they run away” 

And him a say “The struggle to stay may pay” 

And me a say 
“In sunshine we must make hay 
To store to feed a winter's day 
The work we love is not all play
When may all the struggle pay” 

What him a say next 
What me a say next 
Don't go down in text.

The Camel and the Swallow

You know the mound out the back door

There was a Camel under all that straw

And a broken Swallow too
How long for, no one knew

The Camel sat submerged and chewed

The Swallow ate ticks galore

They chewed and chewed until they saw

The world anew, a bit like before.

A breeze came, then a wind

And lightened the Camel's leaden limbs

And twitched the weakened Swallow's wings.

Day by day, summer jets

Lifted golden blades away

Like invisible majorettes

The Swallow began to hop and flap

The Camel stretched its legs and back

And turned his dusty head and said

“No matter what the doctor thinks

There's a million straws gone o'er the brink

And I'm still here and need a drink

How many summers Swallow?”

The Swallow said “more than one

I've lost count, I've seen no sun

Sallow, under all that straw restrained

But you will play piano again.”

And the Camel said “and you will sing”

And that small breath took the Swallow's frame.

In the zephyrs and gusts that summer brings

Came the breath that lifts the Swallow's wings.

Letter to a 4am fan

Given your pride's so clearly in safe hands

What should I read of your shyness

Coy lioness?

To analysis I shan't digress

For all that way is silliness, unless

A rustle in the grass, a scent

I can but wish

In innocence and jest I ask.

What causes you to slink

I wish you'd come confess.

It must be changing metres

Or where I put the stress.

You must have fixed on Cheetahs

Or be vulnerable I guess.

This verse is always yours,

Use it for whatever purpose

If you would that there be more be

Close, come, make others

Superlative, make others

Superfluous

This verse is always yours.

A rustle in the grass

No teeth or claws, I can but muse

Excuse me this
Many souls walk the streets of London
Wishing that they'd played their trumps

Does Carnival, oh mind altering insubstantial

Oh seam of muse

Oh rich vein 

Unmined

Does Carnival and the throbbing street

Touch you only skin deep

Were you once touched deeper

Once touched deeper

Oh and that time flew

Call it shallow

Call me shallow

I know that's not enough for you. ;-)

What was that

I don't know whether it was
Oxytocin or Beta-endorphin
I been spending more time laughin.

I don't know whether it was
3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine or Psilocybin
I been spending more time vibesin.

I don't know whether it was
What's only skin-deep
That touched me like a suture in the amygdala
I been getting better sleep.

I don't know whether it was
Sun-shine or music
But that really did improve shit.

I don't know what to blame
Whether it was all or none
Or one and not the other
Sketched out in rough
Seems enough.